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Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Where is the Unproblematic Party?

A few months ago, I recommended Jill Stein as a possible pick for third party voters. I said that she has all the qualities of Bernie Sanders, only better. And that is mostly true. But in the past few days, I've learned a couple disturbing things about her.

The vote in Britain to exit the European Union (EU) is a victory for those who believe in the right of self-determination and who reject the pro-corporate, austerity policies of the political elites in EU.

That's a pretty iffy thing to say about a vote driven primarily by overt racism and xenophobia that resulted in more of the same, publicly, terrifying innocent British residents.

Brtain [sic] has spoken for much of humanity as it rejects the failed vision of a world that prioritizes profit for the few amidst hardship for the many. Now we must build on this momentum.

Yikes.

According to this article, Stein changed the statement on her website with no notification of the edits and no apology for her rather gross sentiments.

She's also apparently sympathetic to anti-vaccine people because "Big Pharma." I mean, I'm against Big Pharma, too, but I'm not gonna let kids get the measles again to stick it to them.

I saw the standard fat hating crap about the so-called "obesity epidemic" on her website when I first read her platform, but I was all, "eh, good enough."

But learning these new details about Stein got me thinking. And researching. Apparently, the Green Party in general has a lot of shitty problems, including racism. Then on my Voter's Guide for the local primary elections, I saw a candidate for a party called the Socialist Worker's Party, which sounded great! But then I found out that they support the assholes who took over the wildlife refuge in Oregon and literally (LITERALLY) shat all over sacred Native American sites.

I couldn't accept that. But if I can't accept that, the idea of accepting the Democrats is laughable. And if I can't accept that, is the Green Party even close to acceptable? Is there a political party in existence that I don't have to seriously compromise my principles to vote for?

But people keep saying that not voting means giving my vote to the worst people possible.

I have no conclusion for these thoughts. These are just the thoughts I'm having.